46 Shopping galore

My dad said ANYTHING.... Wow! How I wish I have a list of needs and wants but truth is, I dont have... We were raised in a simple lifestyle. I could not forget how my mother trained me and my siblings to do shopping. When we were young, we were not allowed to buy anything if it's not from our own savings.

For example, before classes begin in a year, aside from school uniform, shoes and other school needs, we were given only one extra thing to buy. So we have to eliminate the not so wanted thing and come up with the best one. That one thing should not exceed the price of our school shoes. It was not that easy at that time but we learned to prioritize things specially if it is not a need but just a "want" thing. My mother would usually say, "you will eventually outgrow it". In addition, just like typical families, me and my siblings were not exempted from handed over things. In fairness, the toys and other items bought by our parents are from known brands and a little bit pricey therefore they are durable and elegant so we didn't mind. In fact, we do sibling meetings in our bedrooms before we go shopping. We discuss things together and compromise on each other's wants to maximize our shopping allowance as one. Collaboration is the key for a perfect shopping with a limited budget, we just have to share whatever one has, we take turns and do bargaining of time incase we want to extend the time of using a particular toy or gadget. In this practice, sibling rivalry never existed.

At school, we bring food to eat so we can save our meal allowances. Whatever we save, we can buy whatever we want out of it. So we learned to value money at an early age. And, with the way we were raised as well as with our parents' modest lifestyle, we ended up saving all year round with nothing bought from it. In fact, I graduated from high school with a bank savings that could franchise a Gas station.

So this time, I need to call a friend, who is luckily a shopping genius, Belle. She would surely be delighted with the privelege of inserting some of her wants for free. I don't mind it anyway, she is not that extravagant either as she was also from a wealthy family but she would always love to have items for free.